Sunday, January 22, 2012

Buzz words abound in the wonky sector of health care, a domain in which many commentators comment more than they actually do health care.

Here is a CMO report on 10 demonstrations projects which sought to test the operational resultsof several buzz word projects.

Dr. Robert Centor gives a brief summary of some of the finding on his blog.See here.

In the Disease Management programs,the costs seemed to exceed the benefits.In three out of four "Value based payment" program there was little or no savings.This is similar to comments I made almost 5 years ago regarding a radomized trial that show no value for a particular disease management program.

Dr Centor said:

Boys and girls, this stuff is much more complex than these demonstration projects can address. Physicians really do their best out there.

You bet it is more complex.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." FA Hayek.The Fatal Conceit.

Russ Roberts writing in his blog, Cafe Hayek said in regard to some or other government program

"So many things the government does are attempts to circumvent the bad things caused by something else they already do."

It seems to be there are a lot of buzz word filled initiatives that are, at least in part, efforts to try and undo the mess made by CMS price controls on physicians fees and the primary care destroying RBRVS .